Feeling anxious about the present. Feeling nostalgic and yearning for the past

Hi @MattMan87, welcome to the group. I always struggled to make friends as well. Any close or meaningful connections really in my 50s now and still have these issues, although they have improved over the past few years.

I think as we get older, its only natural to look back and wish we could change things, especially when theres things about our lives we wished were different now. I try not to dwell on them too much because I can still remember how hard it was back then, especially with other kids, and I remember exactly how difficult it was. That doesn't mean I dont wish I could have firgured it all out a bit more though Its just hard.

The way I try (note, 'try') is to think that I can't fix things that I did or didn't do back then, but I can try to fix thibgs now. So the past 18 months or so Ive tried really hard to work on my issues connecting with other people and try to build a bit of a support network around me. Which in rurn, has helped me let go of some of my failures (thats what they feel like to me) in the past and keep me looking forward rather than backward all the time

Im also out of work and have been for a while, so I get how much harder that makes everything. I wish you all the best with this and Im sure you'll find a lot of extremely supportive people here.

Hey @MattMan87 ,

Thank you for reaching out.

We are glad to have you with us.

I have just sent you an email. Are you able to respond when you are able?

Good evening @MJG017

Thank you for your message. I am sorry to hear about what you have been through.

I am glad there is someone I can relate to which is awesome! I know that we can't go back to the past, but we can do things now that we enjoyed when we were younger. I mostly listen to old songs from the 1990's and the 2000's and pretend that I am still living in that era. I look at old photos of myself from when I was a teenager and thought what a stud I was back then!

Take care 🙂

Hello @ArraDreaming

Thank you for your message. Nice to meet you too and to meet someone I have something in common with!

Have you ever had the same experience when you were in school?

Take care 🙂

No problem at all @MattMan87. I think you'll find quite a few people here who identify with a lot of what you said.

I enjoy listening to music from when I was young as well but you're making me feel old... music when I was young was the 70's and 80s! 😀

There is something about the music we grew up with, it just instantly takes us back. I don't have many photos of my self when I was younger, but if I did, i'm not sure the word 'stud' would be thrown around 😁

Come to think of it, There's not many photos of me at all from back then.. or even later. I remember 3 years when I met mi biological siblings and we started to swap photos of ourselves. The only ones I had to share were primary school class photos. I only had those because that year was my primary school's 50th anniversary (of which I started about 4 years after it opened) and there was a facebook group about it which I had found a few months before.

I spent ages trawling through people posts of their class photos looking for ones I was in and eventually found one for my class for every year. I thought I would remember most kids in the photos, but I really struggled. I did learn a couple of things though. I was always next to the teacher for some reason and bowl haircuts were awesome back then, even though I was the only one who tried to pull it off! 😂

Hello @tyme

Thank you for reaching out to me. I can't access the "email" that you sent me.

Hey @MJG017

Listening to old songs from the past is like going through a time machine.

I don't have many photos of me from when I was young either. One of my sisters did send me a photo of us when we were kids. I looked at me in the photo and was surprised with how much I have changed.

I had a bowl cut too! Instead of saying "stud", I could have just said that I was a good-looking boy back then. I guess that's why those "girls" from high school were interested in wanting to be my friends because of my looks! 😂

Did you ever have the same experience in high school?

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@MattMan87 wrote:

I had a bowl cut too! Instead of saying "stud", I could have just said that I was a good-looking boy back then. I guess that's why those "girls" from high school were interested in wanting to be my friends because of my looks! 😂

Did you ever have the same experience in high school?

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@MattMan87 No, I can't say my high school days were spent thinking about offers of friendship from the girls. I basically kept to myself and was really quite introverted back then. Not that a lot has changed now, but the confidence was pretty low back then so I struggled with I guess what they call social anxiety these days. I guess some of us pulled off the bowl cut better than others or maybe I was just ahead the times. 😂

Hi there,

I will make this short and sweet.

You cannot change the past though you can change the present and ensure your future is not the same.

Thanks